1. Field of the Invention:
This invention relates to weather strip attaching structures for motor vehicles, and more particularly to a weather strip attaching structure for fitting the attaching base portion of a weather strip in a retainer provided along an door opening of the vehicle body.
2. Description of Related Art:
In a hard-top type motor vehicle as shown in FIG. 5, a retainer 20 as shown in FIG. 4 (which is a sectional view taken along line 4--4 in FIG. 5) is provided along a door opening 10 of the vehicle body, and a weather strip 30 is attached to the retainer thus provided.
The retainer 20 is substantially U-shaped in section, opening in one direction. The opening of the retainer 20 is narrowed so that the weather strip 30 is fixedly engaged with the retainer 20. More specifically, the retainer 20 has a bottom 22, and engaging recesses 24 and 26 at both ends of the bottom 22. The attaching base portion 32 of the weather strip 30 has engaging protrusions 34 and 34 extended from its both ends, which are fitted in the engaging recesses 24 and 26 of the retainer 20 so that the weather strip 30 is fixedly engaged with the retainer 20. The weather strip 30 further comprises a hollow sealing portion 36 which is integral with the attaching base portion 32. The hollow sealing portion 36 is sealingly abutted against the edge of the door glass plate or the door frame.
The attaching base portion 32 of the weather strip 30 is, in general, fit in the retainer 20 as follows. First, as shown in FIG. 4, one of the engaging protrusions 34 of the attaching base portion 32 is inserted into the engaging recess 24 of the retainer 20, and, under this condition, the other engaging protrusion 34 is pushed into the other engaging recess 26 by using a roller jig 60.
As described above, the opening of the retainer 20 is narrow. Hence, in pushing the engaging protrusion into the engaging recess (hereinafter referred to as "a push-in operation", when applicable) with the roller jig 60, it is necessary to apply a great pushing force to the weather strip, and moreover the roller jig 60 must be used several times. Thus, the push-in operation takes time and labor. To achieve the push-in operation more readily, a weather strip attaching structure has been proposed in which the attaching base portion is partially made of a high-expansion foaming material so that it is more flexible (cf. Japanese Utility Patent Application (OPI) No. 90860/1987 (the term "OPI" as used herein means an "unexamined published application")). However, the weather strip attaching structure thus proposed is still disadvantageous in the following point: In the weather strip attaching structure, the thickness (t) of the engaging protrusion is substantially equal to the depth (T) of the engaging recess. Hence, before the outer end portion of the engaging protrusion rides over the edge of the engaging recess, the base portion of the engaging protrusion abuts against the bottom of the retainer, which obstructs the push-in operation.